


Mater Dolorosa

by eerialmercurial



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Catholicism, M/M, Post-Canon, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:00:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27635114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerialmercurial/pseuds/eerialmercurial
Summary: The sorrows of Will Graham, or how he loses faith in God and finds faith in Hannibal.
Relationships: Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	Mater Dolorosa

_ 1993 _

The fetid smell of rotting fish floats on the gulf breeze into the little seaside church. The smell has permeated everything this summer; red algae floated in on the tide and choked the life out of the seaside town of Biloxi. Will has seen more dead fish this summer than he has in years of fishing with his father. He hopes he won’t see this much rot on the beach ever again. 

The casinos are empty due to the stench, which means the marinas full of yankee tourists are empty too. It’s about time for Will and his father to move on. 

Will sits in the equally empty Mother of Sorrows Church - one of the only places he can go for free that offers a little shelter from the wet heat and smell hovering over town. 

He found himself staring at the crude, sun-bleached statue of Mother Mary languishing behind the pulpit. She was much smaller and frailer than any living woman would be, and it looked like someone had run their fingers under her cheeks, clearing paths in the dust that covered her. It left the light shining on these cleared streaks of statue as though her cheeks were wet with tears. 

Will wasn’t a good Catholic. He must have been baptized since his father had managed to put him in a handful of Catholic schools, but outside of prayer at these schools, he’d only been to mass for a few Christmases and one Easter. He and his father had stood in the back every time, where his dad worried the bible, bending it to and fro in his hands between standing up and kneeling. Will knew the steps to the song and dance of mass, but he believed it even less than his father did. 

Mother Mary was supposed to soothe the pain of her devotees, but Will had tried prayer enough times to know that it didn’t do any good. He knew down to his bones the same way that he knew he’d never see his mother again that he would feel this pain his entire life. 

  
  


_ 2004 _

Will knows it’s a bunch of bullshit, but he’s read the studies about people using the “power of prayer” to change their lives. It’s about as real as the “power of positive thinking” in his book - a load of pseudoscience that preys on people’s deepest vulnerabilities. But he’s desperate. 

So he finds himself on his knees in the back of an empty church on a Friday night. It’s still cold in D.C. this early in spring, and the concrete floor has sucked any warmth from his calves. Will mumbles his prayers under his breath, hopelessly asking Mother Mary to alleviate his suffering and allow him something good in his life for the first time. He was - he  _ is _ \- only good for one thing - catching criminals. So let him catch criminals with the FBI.  _ Please. _

Behind him, he hears the heavy wooden door of the church open and close quietly. He keeps mumbling his prayers, but half-opens his eyes to watch an older man in an expensive-looking tuxedo stroll to the altar. Something about the man commanded attention, even as he simply lit a candle and bowed his head. Will bows his head once again and continues his rosaries for several more minutes before heaving a sigh and stopping. He doesn’t even know how many he’s done. He holds in a sigh, and stands slowly, his knees clicking and legs cramped from kneeling for so long on the freezing floors. The older man isn’t at the altar any more, and Will assumes that he missed him walk out. 

The next day, the headlines are screaming with news of a horrific discovery - a body in a church not far from the one Will prayed in. She was propped up against the pulpit, surrounded by roses, and hands together as if in prayer. Her ribs were folded back to reveal her heart, and her face was arranged in agony, cheeks still wet with tears when she was found by the groundskeeper. They think her ribs were broken while she was still alive. 

A shiver ran down Will’s spine when he read the news - perhaps if he had gone to that church instead of the one he prayed in, he would have met a similar fate? 

He followed updates on the story intently, using it to take his mind off his dismal psych eval and eventual rejection from the field. By August, Will was packing his bags to move to Virginia and work in the FBI Crime Labs, and it was discovered that the victim who had been brutalized to resemble the Virgin Mary had in fact been using mission trips to traffick young indigenous women from Mexico to D.C. and the surrounding areas. 

When he learned how awful she had been, Will felt slightly better about finding her death so beautiful and more spiritually moving than any statue he had seen of Mother Mary. 

  
  


_ 2013 _

The  _ thing _ in the forest is hunting him. He’s sure of it. He keeps seeing it out of the corner of his eye - at Quantico, on crime scenes, while he wanders Hannibal’s office trying to unspool the mysteries of his own mind. He can’t stay at home. The sound of his dogs barking and growling at his door starts him awake, only for him to sit up and see them resting peacefully in front of the fireplace. 

In a blink, he finds himself in a cold, dark building. The smell of dust and old incense hits him, and he takes a deep, shuddering breath. Will is on his knees, and from the cramps in his thighs, he’s been there a while. He stares at the cold floor, trying to calm his fast breathing, when the soft glow of light catches his eye at the altar. He looks up and moans in pain.

He sees a beautiful, radiant white woman with brown curls and blue eyes, weeping gently with her arms open as if to embrace Will. He recognizes her instantly and begins to cry. 

“Why is this happening to me?” he yells, “What have I done?” 

She doesn’t answer - simply stands there with arms outstretched, glowing faintly, and crying silently. 

Will cries harder and finds himself mumbling the rosary while staring at her, trying to find some shred of faith in God, humanity, or the hallucination in front of him. There is no warmth coming from Mary, and no comfort either. He weeps for Mary’s losses as well as his own, and he knows that there is no respite to come. Mary lost her son permanently, after all. And Will knows with iron clad surety he is going to lose everything.

He blinks and finds himself at his front door, bare feet numb, dogs swarming his legs on the porch. He looks behind himself to find the car parked neatly, snow falling gently over it. There are no tire tracks visible in the driveway, but the windshield is clear of ice. Will turns back around and walks with stiff legs into his home to puzzle out the mysteries of the Chesapeake Ripper and what’s to come.

_ 2015 _

Will gasps for air at the top of a wave and doesn’t have a chance to think before he is swimming furiously towards a rock filled cove. A final wave pushes him onto the beach, taking his breath away as he lands hard on his belly. He pants heavily, before another powerful wave slaps his back and nearly drags him back out to sea. He forces himself onto all fours and scrambles further up the beach. He tries to catch his breath before he realizes something is wrong. His head darts from side to side, scanning the cove, before he twists on himself, his eyes straining as he searches the dark water. 

The faintest fingers of dawn are illuminating the horizon, and he just catches the weak light glinting off of blonde hair before Hannibal’s head dips under the dark water. 

Will doesn’t take a moment to think - almost before he knows what he’s doing, he launches himself off the beach and back into the freezing ocean, an adolescence spent on the water finally becoming useful as he forces his body against the choppy waves.

Salt stinging his eyes, he just makes out Hannibal’s head bobbing above the surface again. The man isn’t even treading water, and he looks close to death - if he isn’t already dead. Will pushes himself the final feet to Hannibal, slings an arm under his shoulders, and begins pulling them desperately to shore, riding the waves where he can and fighting the undertow and his numb body at the same time. He can’t feel the arm under Hannibal’s shoulders, but he can feel Hannibal’s body pressed into his side.

Will manages a more graceful second landing on the shore, just avoiding being slammed into the rocks by another wave. He turns as fast as he can manage on frozen, exhausted legs, and drags Hannibal up the beach, unsure if he’s dragging a corpse or a man. There is no warmth coming from Hannibal that Will can feel, and his skin is pale and blue. Will collapses onto the beach as soon as they are free of the shoreline, Hannibal falling into his lap heavily.

Will fumbles with numb fingers against Hannibal's wrist, then neck, trying desperately for a pulse. He can’t feel anything, but he can’t tell if it’s because of his frozen fingers or Hannibal’s lack of heartbeat. Tears slide down his cheeks, their heat burning compared to the ice of his skin. He crouches over the potential corpse of Hannibal and feels an ugly tangle of hatred and desperate love. If he has to live, then so should Hannibal. 

As the rosy dawn reaches the cove, Will hears the distant sound of an engine. He looks up and sees a figure in a heavy raincoat piloting a dinghy to shore. Will stares at the figure numbly, knowing whatever surprise this is, it doesn’t end in a jail cell courtesy of the BAU for either himself or Hannibal. What he doesn’t know is if what waits for them is preferable to Jack Crawford’s tender embrace. 

Will watches the figure anchor the dinghy before walking on shore, the waves beginning to calm as day breaks. Before long, the person is crouching to Will’s level, and firmly pulling his frozen hands from where they inadvertently tightened around Hannibal. He recognizes the firm, gentle touch of Chiyoh. 

“Can you help me carry him?” she asks, her soft voice carrying over the noise of the waves effortlessly. Will nods stiffly, and Chiyoh heaves Hannibal against her chest so Will can pull himself out from under his heavy body. The two of them carry him to the dinghy, Chiyoh splashing through the water effortlessly in galoshes while Will just begins to tremble as the air warms. 

They manage to place him in the boat, and as Chiyoh pilots them farther out to sea, Will, hands shaking and burning with renewed sensation, places his fingers against Hannibal’s throat. There, just faintly, he feels it - a slow, steady heartbeat. 

* * *

It’s a miracle they get him onto the boat without adding to his injuries. When he’s settled, Will asks Chiyoh what’s wrong with Hannibal. She shrugs. 

“I’m not a doctor. It could be hypothermia, a head injury, a stroke. We’ll just have to wait and see if he wakes up.” 

She attaches an IV, “the limit of my medical knowledge,” and leaves Will to watch over Hannibal while she pilots the yacht to a destination that Will doesn’t think to ask after. 

Will stares at Hannibal as if in a trance, barely noticing when Chiyoh brings him food and joins him for an occasional meal. Days pass, marked only by a digital clock bolted to the wall, while Will holds vigil, watching bruises bloom and begin to fade on Hannibal’s face. On the third day, Hannibal stirs, eyes roaming under his eyelids. All at once, he opens his eyes and looks into Will’s face. Hannibal smiles just slightly, and squeezes Will’s hand with surprising strength. Will doesn’t even know when he took Hannibal’s hand. 

“It appears we made it.” 

  
  


_ 2017 _

Will contemplates the anguished face of the woman, enshrined with resin tears forever cascading down her face. She is beautiful, Will knows. A work of art. But she stirs nothing in him. 

Soft footsteps make their way towards the altar where he stands before coming to rest just behind him. He feels Hannibal’s hot breath on his ear. 

“What do you think?”

“She’s very sad,” Will says wryly. 

“Ah,” Hannibal says, “but there is ecstasy there, too. See the furrow in her brow and the way her eyes roll up? She’s enjoying this pain.”

Will hums. “Let’s get dinner,” he says, turning around in the narrow space Hannibal left between their bodies, brushing chests with him. “I’d like some ecstasy of my own.” 

The lines at the edges of Hannibal’s eyes crease deeper, a smile pulling his lips. “Is there anything you have in mind?”

Will steps past Hannibal, his hand trailing the length of Hannibal’s forearm as he walks towards the ancient wooden door of the church. 

“I’ll think of something,” he says, listening to Hannibal’s soft foot falls behind him, following him away. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> No beta, so please let me know if you there are any typos or glaring grammatical issues. You can find me very occasionally at gendervicious.tumblr.com.


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